Snatch, eat, erase
by LeighJ11
Summary: It turns out everything Elena needed to say to Damon was inside her all this time.


**Hey guys, uploading here today because I want to let you guys know I'm moving to A03 permanently. It's so much easier to tag appropriately there and organise my works into series which I have a lot of. I hope you come and join me over there on my pen name LeighJ.**

 **I decided to write this after many years of wanting to write Delena when my two favourite Delena authors resurfaced recently: Trogdor19 and Goldnox. They are fucking crazy talented. Go read right now! But Delena are precious to twelve year old me and I don't want to fuck them up so I pray I did them justice.**

 **I'm imagining for this that Mystic Falls doesn't have a years worth of drama all happen in a heart wrenching twenty four hours and that there was more than a week between major events: Elena dying and then choosing Damon. Imagine this as one of the nights inbetween.**

 **Thank you wallflow3r for betaing even when you have never watched or read TVD and didn't have a clue what I was writing!**

"I need your help."

The minute she says it, the minute it pushes into the space between them, Elena's eyelashes flutter closed in shame. She's always asking for his help. Always turning to him when her life is falling to shreds and always, always hurting him in the process.

Damon sighs as he relaxes back into the pillow beside her. Nights like this are usually so simple. So easy. He slides through the window she always leaves open for him and they pretend that their life isn't a tangle of love lines and heartbreak.

They pretend that his brother isn't at home, knowing that Damon's here in her bed, where he used to be.  
Still could be, if they were anything like they used to be when they first met. If she was still that heartbroken little girl, torn apart by the loss of her parents and her life as she knew it.

Stefan would like that, if she could just play pretend and remember who it was he met that day in high school. Thinking about Stefan hurts so she pushes it away and presses herself back into the space she shares with Damon.

He's breathing slow and easy like he's not even breathing at all which he might not be. The air is perfumed with his scent. Whiskey and leather and danger. All the things that make Elena's veins crawl with want, with need, with desire.

All the things she shouldn't feel for him because she chose his brother, over and over and over again. He doesn't say anything and she realises he's waiting patiently for her to explain. Always waiting on her. Her eyes water and her throat catches and God, she's so _sick_ of crying.

So sick of hurting, of guilt, of _emotion_ that she trembles where she lies. Wordlessly, Damon's fingers spread across the sheet between them and find hers, brushing so light that as a human she wouldn't have felt it. As a vampire it's all she can feel, all she can think about and it's Denver all over again.

The heat in her gut and the pound of her heart that she knows he hears. The flush in her cheeks and the rise of her chest. Rising and rising until she's holding all the air she can in her lungs. She doesn't need it but she's still so new that human memory pushes it out desperately and greedily drinks it back in.

"Breathe, Elena," he whispers softly, so close it stirs her hair.

Her nails dig into his hand and she doesn't want to hurt him but she always does, that's _all_ she does and he hisses. The sharp, thick flavour of him releases into the air through his open wound, everything that's so Damon now so potent. The veins buried beneath her skin crawl and stretch, her gums aching with the puncture of her teeth.

"Elena," he breathes. "Focus on me."

"I _am_ , that's the problem," she hisses, voice broken and churned up by her teeth.

It's so overwhelming, her mind and emotions flicking from one to the other like the turn of a page. In a heartbeat she flies from shamed to hungry, aroused to angry, full of grief and embarrassment and need and it's _too_ much. It's too much and all she's doing is lying in bed in the pyjamas she would wear as a human and she's _drowning_.

"I'm so _hungry_ ," she moans and her eyes squeeze closed again.

Damon is usually so composed, so unruffled that she jumps when he squeezes her hand so hard the bones grind audibly. When he hears them begin to splinter he releases her like she burnt him, grinding his teeth instead.

"Fucking rabbit food was never going to work."

It's an I told you so, pure and simple but she's so lost and confused, so hungry that she doesn't care. She'll do anything, say anything, _be_ anything to just eat and not throw it back up, to not feel guilty or shamed or like the scum of the earth. She just wants. She wants so much.

Blood and sex and Damon, God she wants Damon so bad but she told Stefan just yesterday that she couldn't go on pretending anymore, couldn't go on with the hope in his eyes that she would be different. It's too soon, it's too much.

She hasn't told Damon that she's left his brother and she doesn't know if Stefan did but she doesn't have the room for it. Her skin feels like it's going to peel straight from her bones and her heart is punching out of her chest. She can't do this.

She can't be a vampire, she hasn't got a clue, doesn't stand a chance. She's not Katherine. She's not sly or manipulative, she's not fierce or bold or any of the things her doppelganger is. So what does she _do_?

"Elena." His hand is there, big and scorching on her chin as he tips her face up.

It reminds her of when her car flipped the night she found Katherine's picture, when he pulled her out and she was so woozy her legs went from under her, the adrenaline sucking all her energy. He took her chin and tipped her head, looked into her eyes. He's always been there. From the start of this crazy mess that is her life.

The Salvatore's brought that mess, brought the supernatural and secrets but she would have found them eventually. Soon the truth about her parents would have come to light, soon she would have come across Katherine and Isabel, even without the brothers. She lives in _Mystic Falls_ after all.

She's so lost in her head that he has to say her name again, his smile easy but his eyes serious. "Were you picturing me naked?"

A smile struggles at her mouth but it's weak and he knows it. She doesn't want to laugh or smile. She doesn't want to be happy when she hurts so deep, when she's starving.

"Damon," is all she manages to croak out between her teeth that still haven't retracted.

It's almost embarrassing being this naked, this vulnerable and he knows it because he smiles loose and easy, letting the vampire beneath his skin steal across the human landscape. "It's okay. Breathe."

She breathes. In and out, deep and slow but the fangs don't retract. "What do I do?" She whispers miserably. "How do I be suave and confident like you? How do I just... be this?"

His coarse thumbs reach up where he cups her face and strokes over the veins flaring beneath her eyes. They seek his heat, pulsing for him and it's a feeling she's never experienced before, a feeling that chokes her throat and speeds her heart. Makes her crave. Makes her need.

Her fingernails dig into his forearms and he smiles, that sexy, confident smile that tells her he knows exactly what he's doing to her. "We're going out. Get dressed."

With the next blink of her eye, he's gone. Not in her bed or her room. She sits up so fast she blurs, catching the movement in the mirror opposite her even in darkness. Where did he go? He said they were going out and he wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.

Elena feels so unhinged that she doesn't move at her usual human speed. With each movement her head rocks, not used to giving into so much of her vampire enhancements. It takes her a moment to realise she's moving around in the dark, having forgone her usual human habit of hitting the light switch.

The thought makes her hands tremble. Day by day she's becoming a little more _them_ and a little less her and she doesn't know how to do that, she doesn't know how to find balance. She dresses mechanically but fast, tugging jeans over her shorts and a leather jacket over her camisole.

When she's dressed, she strides to her window, takes a deep breath and jumps. It still scares her. Acting like this, being like this. She's so new and still so human in her ways. Flinching from the ground rushing up to meet her, fighting the wind as it steals her breath and even waiting to be grounded for being out so late.

Hitting the soft earth outside, she finds Damon leaning against a tree with a smirk decorating his face. "Let's go."

He blends into the treeline at the back of her house and she follows, her senses unfurling like a flower, soaking up all there is to see, hear, feel. The heart beat of a squirrel, the rustle of the wind, the smell of oncoming rain and Damon's clenching back as he walks ahead of her.

"I know you're of the undead, Elena but pick up the pace," he teases.

She can't see his face so she smiles at his back and runs ahead. The run escalates from a jog to a blur and when she stops Damon is far, far behind her while she stands at the treeline opening up to a long, empty road.

At the presumably frightened expression on her face when he appears beside her, he gives her a reassuring smile. "You'll get used to it."

"When?" She asks desperately and then cringes because she sounds so much like the whiney teenager Katherine is always accusing her of being.

His hand cups her face, stealing the breath from her lungs. "In time. Right now, it's time to learn how to," he pauses dramatically to add jazz hands, releasing her. " _Snatch, eat, erase_." He sing-songs.

Elena wrinkles her nose a little. Humans are not her preferred choice of meal but she tried animal and blood bag and not one of them worked. She's starving and weak, ugly and broken. She wants to be strong and fierce like vampires should be, not a weak little kitten. She wants to be unstoppable.

There's a moment of silence and she realises he's waiting for her to object. Because even though he brought her out here he doesn't really expect her to listen to his ideas. Maybe because he's already tried to tell her so many times and every time she followed Stefan and not him.

Her heart concaves at the thought that she even chose Stefan in her simplest decisions. God, has there ever been a time when she's just trusted Damon? Just chose him, his advice and followed his lead? Has there never been a time that she didn't run to him as her second choice when the first one went to shit?

Guilt sits so heavy on her chest that she can't find the air to breathe and Damon must mistake it for panic because he becomes irritated fast. "You asked for _my_ help, Elena. We do this _my_ way. Straight from the vein and no one gets hurt." He takes a step into her space, stroking her cheek. "I won't let you lose control, Elena."

The otherworldly blue of his eyes turns her skin so hot she's sure to burst and she's so fed up of resisting so many feelings at once that she has to give in to just one of them.

Her hands reach breathlessly, wordlessly and cup him by the jaw. Damon's eyes flare, lashes trembling and where he holds her face he squeezes. "I trust you, Damon. I-"

Whether she intends to say _I love you_ or _I choose you_ she isn't sure because a car sounds at the beginning of the road, less than thirty seconds away and his head snaps in that direction. He disappears from beneath her hands and when she wildly looks around he's lying in the road.

"Follow my lead," he tells her from where he's lying, her sensitive hearing picking it up.

Elena knows he expects her to stay on the side of the road and wait for him to serve her meal to her but she can't be that girl anymore. She doesn't want to hurt anyone but she trusts Damon enough to not let her. Trusts him enough to let her try and be the vampire and the woman that she wants to be.

Appearing at his side, he doesn't have time to question her before the car begins to slow down at the sight of them in the road. When the driver is sure of what they're seeing: Damon's body in the street and Elena bent over him, the engine comes to a stop and the door flies open.

"Are you okay, miss?"

Elena looks up and when she cries it's real. She cries for the girls sweet little face, for her phone in her front pocket and the chewing gum in her mouth. Cries for innocence and purity. Cries for so long she feels Damon's presence like a hand on her arm, telling her to keep going, to not back out even though he isn't talking or moving.

"My... my boyfriend, he got hit. Someone just come speeding by and I don't... I don't know if he's alive." She turns her face to Damon's, smooth and scarily convincing.

It's stupid but when the girl comes closer to look, Elena wants to protect him. Wants to stop someone from seeing him this open, this vulnerable and her heart clutches as if he's really dead, right there on the road. It's what fuels her spring from a crouch to standing, her speed carrying her in front of the girl whose heart just shot through the roof.

Brown eyes connect with hazel. "Don't be afraid. Don't scream. You're helping someone in need. You're a good person."

Her hearing picks up Damon's snort but the girls human ears don't. He stands from the road and smiles at Elena despite his derisive snort. He's proud of her. The feeling punches into her chest and sends her head spinning. She can do this. She can.

Cupping the girls throat, she looks her in the eye once more. "When I bite you, it's going to feel like nothing you've ever felt before. It's going to feel like love and lust, like ecstasy and it'll be like freefall, but you'll love every second of it."

"I'll love every second of it," the girl whispers back.

Damon appears behind her, looking into Elena's eyes over the woman's shoulder. There's a question there, one she reads well and she simply smiles. He nods to her and she leans in slowly, her fangs descending at the soft _glugglugglug_ of the blood running through the woman's body.

Damon's hand touches her hip when she hesitates and then she slides into it. Not rushing, not hesitating but embracing the way that he embraces everything. Vampirisim, charm, sex, wit. The first pull of blood tastes like burgers and fries, like laughs and children, barbeques in the summer and pool parties.

The second pull is pure bliss, the third too and then the fourth leaves the girl weak in the knees and when she moans it makes everything between Elena's legs throb. She's never been attracted to women and she's sure this woman has never been either but the blood sharing and the compulsion have loosened them both.

The girl falls into Damon's chest, bringing Elena staggering after her and when she moans again it's so thick and pleasured that Elena blushes. The scent steals into her nose even through the taste of blood in her mouth and she pulls away in sheer surprise, forgetting all about bloodlust.

"Did she just..." She trails off to Damon who is watching her with shrunken blue pools.

"You told her to. You told her it would feel like love and lust and that she would love every minute of it. Compulsion is not just magic, Elena. It's what you feel. You feel that and have felt that. Translated into her mind, it was orgasmic."

The flush stains not just her cheeks but her chest this time. She can't even find the annoyance that she blushes so much even dead when she's drowning in shock. When she said those things, she was talking about him. About him and her and how he makes her feel. She was talking about them and to this stranger, they are _orgasmic_.

The woman moans softly, rolling her head against Damon's shoulder and he eases her with a whispered _shhh_ before he looks back to Elena. "Don't forget the last step."

The world around her is crashing into her senses and she feels drunk when she steps forward and gently takes a hold of the woman's chin. "Thank you. You did an amazing thing. Now forget that you met us and only remember that feeling of goodness. Get in your car, drive home and be safe. Be kind."

"Okay Mother Theresa," Damon interrupts as he leads the shaking, half conscious woman back to her car. "We'll be lucky if she manages to get home before getting herself off again."

"Damon!" She gasps but she feels so much better after some blood that she giggles, wiping at her mouth.

She watches as he kindly puts the stranger into her car seat, clips her seatbelt and strokes her hair. Elena would be jealous if she had the right to be and if she didn't know it's because he is truly thankful, if only on her behalf that this woman fed Elena's sickly stomach.

When he comes striding back to her, she smiles and loops her arm through his. "Thank you."

He gives her that smile she loves: the quick flash like a light switch on and off. "Anytime... any place, any position..."

"Damon!" She laughs and he laughs too.

They fall quiet as they begin to make their way back and she's still thinking of what that woman did that she suddenly remembers a question she had for him. "She tasted like memories. I could taste her in her blood like I know her."

He cocks his head at her in puzzlement. "I've never heard of that before. Must be your big soppy heart."

She smiles again and squeezes his arm, making the rest of their way in silence. When they reach the back of her house that leads to her room, she glances at him nervously. He usually just slips in and they never talk about it. She doesn't know how to ask him to stay.

"Are you..." He stares at her and she realises that he's not going to come unless she really asks, unless she _means_ it. Taking a deep breath, she whispers, "we need to talk about... About us."

A dangerously slow smirk steals over his mouth even when his eyes are so nervous and all he whispers is, "I know."

She realises in that moment that when she compelled that girl, when she made it good for her, she told him everything she's being meaning to tell him for so long. Everything she wanted to express but didn't know how.

She laughs as she gets it, as it all clicks into place. "We should have done snatch, eat, erase a long time ago."

His hand curls around her cheek and he smiles. "Yeah, we should."


End file.
